Fun Fact: There is a lot to say about Mor Faye, also known aas the “African Van Gogh” because he died at 37 of celebral malaria, most his paintings were done in an asylum as a symptom of his dementia and he went widely unrecognised until after his death. He was against the Ecole du Dakar and Leopold Senghor’s art programs so much so that he once in a while stged colourful protests outside the gates of the presidential palace. What is amazing is that he owed all his skill and style to Leopold Senghor’s art programs

Quote: No one really paid attention to him when he was alive but I imagine aside from the dementia some anti-Africanity sentiments were shouted at Senghor

Fun Fact: Known as a trans-cultural visionary, Wiz`s work is influenced by two key interests: the human form as transformational agent and ancestral wisdom as “aesthetic tools”. Both are intricately linked to, and stand as metaphors for, self-growth. He speaks of “emotions, energies, feelings” some evoked from the everyday, others evoked from the “subconscious”; these “dictate at particular times” the nature and progression of his imaginative thinking and productivity.

Quote:

“I strive to satisfy my own whims first in all these attempts hoping eventually to attract mutual minds and interests. There is however room also for the viewer to transcend and relate to my work from his or her own perspective. In other words, I expect the works to prompt and extract a response from those who come into contact with [it], even if negative.”

“When I travelled out to exhibitions, it transformed me into knowing I could tackle other things and not feel guilty about it. You are a human being first, African second. When I freed myself from the trappings of being African, my work became more universal.”

Fun Fact: He is a simple man, an ecofriendly simple man; Amedokpo paints using locally available oils and his canvases are recycled flour sacks, washed and stretched. His studio forms part of his family compound; a tin roof shelters him from the African sun and seasonal rains.

Quote:

Red is my favorite color,” says Joseph. “From red I can make so many other colors. It is very important in our traditions, too. Red is the color of blood, which is life, and our soil, which feeds us. And red is one of the main colors of many of our gods, like Mamiwata, who can heal the sick.

Paintings

1. Shango- God of Thunder

2. Devil’s cooking pot

3. The Initiation of the Voudou maidens

4. Birds KIngdom

5. Angere stilt dancers

Dell picked Joseph’s paintings for their Computer covers, the statement was: His paintings touch on the failures and weaknesses of people, as well as their core strength, their hopes. The aids crisis in Africa. How all kings eventually dance naked, brought down to earth with the rest of us.

His art covers a wide swath of the old and the new, in this area, and he has seen some success as his paintings are increasingly sought out and collected internationally. He hopes his participation in Project Red will expose his art to more people, and he is glad that his paintings will be helping fight aids in Africa.

Fun Fact: He used to illustrate the covers of the famous negritude magazine Présence africaine , he also knew John Coltrane and Malcolm X. He was also a prominent member of the Ecole du Daka which posed challenges to the universal tenets of humanism and demanded recognition of Africa’s contributions to global modernity

Quote: At the time it was a question of creating,

for myself, an artistic language that seemed to me to belong to Africa and to Senegal. I was inspired by the theory of Negritude that back then, you must recall, was unique. Wole Soyinka didn’t yet exist and the other theoreticians of the day were economic theoreticians—Nkrumah had an economic theory, not cultural. So, those of us who wanted to create something autonomous, belonging to and reflecting just us, had little to inspire us but Negritude…. What interested me in finding a kind of authenticity was not to create pure decoration but to create a language of visual forms which defined me for myself.

“Art is not static, like culture. Art changes its form with the times. It is setting the clock back to expect that the art form of Africa today must resemble that of yesterday otherwise the former will not reflect the African image. African art has always, even long before western influence, continued to evolve through change and adaptation to new circumstances. And in like manner, the African view of art has followed the trend of cultural change up to the modern times”. 1950, Ben Enwonwu.

Painter and sculpture Ben Enwonwu, is a personal favorite. Growing up i spent countless hours staring at works of his in my uncle and aunts house. I particularly loved a portrait he did of my aunt.